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26 Jun, 2015 12:00

Prank or physics anomaly? Running tap water turns into ice in Australia (VIDEO)

Prank or physics anomaly? Running tap water turns into ice in Australia (VIDEO)

Countering the popular belief that Australia is a scorching-hot island paradise, a video has emerged claiming that the chilly nights are freezing - literally. People online watched in disbelief as tap water turned into a standing icicle as it came out.

The video was posted by Kate Norton-Smith from the state of New South Wales on YouTube this Sunday, claiming that the weird phenomenon is taking place in a country where people continue wearing shorts and skimpy tops during the winter’s days.

"This is what happened when we turned on our HOT water tap on a chilly Sunday morning in Albury, NSW," she wrote in the description.

The comments that emerged were hilarious. One Swedish LiveLeaker wrote “daaaaaaaaamn, my beers would LOVE to have a tap like that”. One American poster called the whole thing a fake, saying “I live in a cold area and water would not freeze like that. I'm guessing it could be something like the powder used in diapers.”

“I'd check your plumbing - I'm in New Zealand right now & our water doesn't do this. I'm also from Canada, where we get REAL winter (i.e. -30C), and water doesn't do this,” one user wrote on YouTube.

Supercooled water could do the trick, although it would have to be crystal clear to get to that state. A supersaturated salt solution would produce a similar effect. But it’s hard to imagine that either would appear in a tap, so it’s either a prank, or a mystery which remains to be solved.

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